Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands

by Richard Montanari

  At sixteen, Lauren Semanski—and she might be the first to admit this—didn’t know a whole lot about a whole lot of things.

  But she did know good meth.

  “Kryptonite.” She dropped the tooter on the coffee table, leaned back against the couch. She felt like howling. She glanced around the room. Wiggers everywhere. Someone cranked up the music. Sounded like Billy Corgan. Pumpkins were old-school cool. Zwan sucked.

  “Low-rent!” Jeff yelled, barely audible above the music, using his stupid nickname for her, ignoring her wishes for the millionth time. He air-guitared a few choice licks, drooling on his Mars Volta T-shirt, grinning like a hyena.

  God, what a queer, Lauren thought. Cute, but geek-a-roni. “Gotta jet,” she yelled.

  “Naw, come on, Lo.” He held out the tooter to her, like she hadn’t already snorted an entire Rite-Aid.

  “I can’t.” She was supposed to be at the grocery store. She was supposed to be picking up a cherry glaze for the stupid Easter ham. As if she needed food. Who needed food? No one she knew. Still, she had to fly. “She’ll kill me if I forget to go to the store.”

  Jeff made a face, then bent over the glass coffee table and ripped a line. He was gone. She was hoping for a kiss good-bye, but when he leaned back from the table, she saw his eyes.

  North.

  Lauren stood, gathered her purse and her umbrella. She looked around the obstacle course of bodies, reposing in various states of hyper-consciousness. The windows were blacked out with construction paper. All the lamps held red lightbulbs.

  She’d be back later.

  Jeff had enough for all tweak-end long.

  She stepped into the street, her Ray-Bans firmly in place. It was still raining—would it ever stop?—but even the overcast sky was a little too bright for her. Besides, she dug the way the sunglasses made her look. Sometimes, she wore them at night. Sometimes, she wore them to bed.

  She cleared her throat, swallowed. The burn of the meth at the back of her throat gave her a second charge.

  She was way too gakked to go home. Anyway, it was Baghdad there these days. She didn’t need the grief.

  She pulled out her Nokia, trying to think of an excuse she could use. All she needed was an hour or so to come down. Car trouble? Seeing as the VW was in the shop, that wouldn’t fly. Sick friend? Please, Lo. Grandma B would ask for notes from the doctors at this point. What hadn’t she used for a while? Not much. She had been at Jeff’s maybe four days a week for the past month. Late almost every day.

  I know, she thought. I’ve got it.

  Sorry, Grams. I can’t make it home for lunch. I’ve been kidnapped.

  Ha-ha. Like she’d give a shit.

  Ever since Lauren’s parents had done the real crash test dummy scene last year, she had been living with the living dead.

  Fuck it. She’d go deal with it.

  She window-shopped a little, lifting the sunglasses to see. The ’Bans were cool and all, but man were they dark.

  She cut across the parking lot behind the stores at the corner of her street, steeling herself for the onslaught that was her grandmother.

  “Hi, Lauren!” someone yelled.

  She turned around. Who called her? She glanced around the lot. She didn’t see anyone, just a handful of cars, a couple of vans. She tried to place the voice, couldn’t.

  “Hello?” she said.

  Silence.

  She backtracked between a van and a beer delivery truck. She took off her sunglasses, looked around, turning 360.

  The next thing she knew, there was a hand over her mouth. At first she thought it was Jeff, but even Jeff wouldn’t take a joke this far. This was so not funny. She struggled to get herself free, but whoever was playing this (not at all) hilarious joke on her was strong. Really strong.

  She felt a needle in her left arm.

  Huh? Oh, that’s it, fucker, she thought.

  She was just about to go Vin Diesel on this guy when, instead, her legs wobbled, and she fell against the van. She tried to stay alert as she slid to the ground. Something was happening to her and she wanted to catalogue everything in her mind. When the cops busted this fucker—and bust this fucker they most assuredly would—she was going to be the best witness ever. First of all, he smelled clean. A little too clean if you asked her. Plus, he had on rubber gloves.

  Not a good sign, CSI-wise.

  The weakness made its way up to her stomach, her chest, her throat.

  Fight it, Lauren.

  She had taken her first drink at the age of nine, when her older cousin Gretchen had slipped her a wine cooler at the Fourth of July fireworks at Boat House Row. It was love at first buzz. Since that day she had ingested every substance known to humankind and a few that may have only been known to extraterrestrials. She could handle whatever was in that needle. The world going wah-wah pedal and rubbery around the edges was old shit. She once drove home from AC while she was one-eyed drunk on Jack and nursing a three-day amp.

  She blanked.

  She came back.

  Now she was on her back in the van. Or was it an SUV? Either way, they were moving. Fast. Her head was swimming, but it wasn’t a good swimming. It was like that three in the morning and I shouldn’t have done the X and the Nardil swimming.

  She was cold. She pulled the sheet over her. It wasn’t really a sheet. It was a shirt or a coat or something.

  From the far reaches of her consciousness, she heard her cell phone ring. She heard it chime its stupid Korn ring tone and it was just in her pocket and all she had to do was answer it like she had a billion other times and tell her grandmother to call the fucking cops and this guy would be so busted.

  But she couldn’t move. Her arms felt like they weighed a ton.

  The phone rang again. He reached over and began wiggling the phone from her jeans pocket. Her jeans were tight and he was having a hard time getting the phone out. Good. She wanted to grab his arm, to stop him, but she seemed to be moving in slow motion. He worked the Nokia out of her pocket, slowly, keeping the other hand on the wheel, every so often glancing back at the road.

  From somewhere deep inside her, Lauren felt her anger and rage begin to grow, a volcanic swell of fury that told her that if she didn’t do something, and soon, she wasn’t going to get out of this alive. She pulled the jacket up over her chin. She was so cold, suddenly. She felt something in one of the pockets. A pen? Probably. She took it out and gripped it as tightly as she could.

  Like a knife.

  When he finally got the phone out of her jeans, she knew she had to make her move. As he pulled away, she swung her fist in a huge arc, the pen catching him on the back of his right hand, the tip snapping off. He shrieked as the vehicle swerved, left, then right, tossing her body against one wall, then the other. They must have gone over a curb, because she was abruptly thrown into the air, then came crashing back down. She heard a loud click, then felt a huge rush of air.

  The side door was open, but they were still moving.

  She felt the cool, damp air swirl around the inside of the vehicle, bringing with it the smell of exhaust fumes and just-mowed grass. The rush revived her a bit, tamed the rising nausea. Somewhat. Then Lauren felt the drug he had injected her with grab hold again. She was still flying on the meth, too. But whatever he had shot her up with made her mind swim, dulling her senses.

  The wind continued to whip around. The earth screamed by, just beyond her feet. It reminded her of the twister in The Wizard of Oz. Or the twister in Twister.

  They were driving even faster now. Time receded for a moment, then returned. She looked up just as the man reached for her again. He had something in his hand this time, something metallic and shiny. A gun? A knife? No. It was so hard to concentrate. Lauren tried to focus on the object. The wind blew dust and debris around the inside of the vehicle, clouding her vision, stinging her eyes. Then she saw the hypodermic needle coming at her. The needle looked huge and sharp and deadly. She couldn’t let him stick her again.
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br />   Couldn’t.

  Lauren Semanski summoned the last scrap of her courage.

  She sat up, felt the strength gather in her legs.

  She pushed off.

  And found that she could fly.

  60

  FRIDAY, 10:15 AM

  THE PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT labored beneath the microscope of the national media. The three networks, as well as Fox and CNN, had camera crews set up all over town and were running updates three or four times per cycle.

  The local television news ran the Rosary Killer story in heavy rotation, complete with its own logo and theme music. They also featured a listing of Catholic churches offering Good Friday masses, as well as a handful that were holding prayer vigils for the victims.

  Catholic families, especially those with daughters—whether they attended parochial schools or not—were proportionately terrified. Police expected a heavy increase in stranger shootings. Mail carriers, FedEx and UPS drivers were at particular risk. As were people with whom others had a grudge.

  I thought he was the Rosary Killer, Your Honor.

  I had to shoot him.

  I’ve got a daughter.

  The department held the news of Brian Parkhurst’s death from the media as long as they could, but it eventually leaked, like it always does. The district attorney had addressed the media gathered in front of 1421 Arch Street and, when asked if there was evidence that Brian Parkhurst was the Rosary Killer, she had to tell them no. Parkhurst had been a material witness.

  And so the carousel spun.

  THE NEWS OF THE FOURTH VICTIM brought them all out of the woodwork. As Jessica approached the Roundhouse, she saw a few dozen people with cardboard signs milling around the sidewalk on Eighth Street, most of their sentiments proclaiming the end of the world. Jessica thought she saw the names JEZEBEL and MAGDALENE on a few of the signs.

  Inside it was worse. As much as they all knew that no credible leads would come out of it, they had to take all their statements. B-movie Rasputins, the requisite Jasons and Freddys. Then there were the ersatz Hannibals, Gacys, Dahmers, and Bundys to deal with. In all, there had been more than one hundred confessions.

  Up in the Homicide Unit, as Jessica began to gather her notes for the task force meeting, a rather shrill female laugh from across the room drew her attention.

  What kind of lunatic is this? she wondered.

  She looked up, and what she saw stopped her in her tracks. It was the blond girl in the ponytail and leather jacket. The girl she had seen with Vincent. Here. In the Roundhouse. Although now that Jessica got a good look at her, it was clear that she was not nearly as young as she had originally thought. Still, seeing her in this setting was completely surreal.

  “What the hell is this?” Jessica said, loud enough for Byrne to hear. She tossed her notebooks on the assignment desk.

  “What?” Byrne asked.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. She tried, and failed, to calm herself. “This . . . bitch has the balls to come down here and get in my face?”

  Jessica took a step forward, and her posture must have taken on a certain menace, because Byrne stepped between her and the woman.

  “Whoa,” Byrne said. “Hang on. What are you talking about?”

  “Let me by, Kevin.”

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “That’s the bitch I saw with Vincent the other day. I can’t believe she—”

  “Who, the blonde?”

  “Yeah. She’s the—”

  “That’s Nicci Malone.”

  “Who?”

  “Nicolette Malone.”

  Jessica processed the name, came up with nothing. “This is supposed to mean something to me?”

  “She’s a narcotics detective. She works out of Central.”

  Something suddenly dislodged in Jessica’s chest, an ice floe of shame and guilt that chilled her. Vincent had been on the job. The blond woman was someone he worked with.

  Vincent had tried to tell her, and she wouldn’t listen. Once again, she had made a Grade-A asshole out of herself.

  Jealousy, thy name is Jessica.

  THE TASK FORCE PREPARED TO MEET.

  The discovery of Kristi Hamilton and Wilhelm Kreuz had brought a call to the Homicide Unit from the FBI. The task force was scheduled to convene the following day with a pair of agents from the Philadelphia field office. The jurisdictional considerations of these crimes had been in question since the discovery of Tessa Wells, given the very real possibility that all of the victims were kidnapped, which made at least part of the crimes federal. The usual territorial objections were voiced, as expected, but none too vehemently. The truth was the task force needed all the help it could get. The Rosary Girl murders had escalated so rapidly, and now, with the murder of Wilhelm Kreuz, promised to expand into areas the PPD was simply not equipped to deal with.

  The Crime Scene Unit had half a dozen technicians in Kreuz’s Kensington Avenue apartment alone.

  AT ELEVEN THIRTY Jessica retrieved her e-mail.

  In her mailbox were a few pieces of spam, along with a few pieces of e-mail from GTA knuckleheads she had put away in the Auto Squad, relaying the same invectives, the same promises to see her again one day.

  Amid the same-old, same-old there was one message from sclose@thereport.com.

  She had to look at the sender’s address twice. She was right. Simon Close at The Report.

  Jessica shook her head at the enormity of the brass on this guy. Why on earth would this piece of shit think she wanted to hear anything he had to say?

  She was just about to delete it when she saw that there was an attachment. She ran it by the virus program and it came back clean. Probably the only clean thing about Simon Close.

  Jessica opened the attachment. It was a color photograph. At first, she had trouble recognizing the man in the photograph. She wondered why Simon Close would be sending her a picture of some guy she didn’t know. Of course, if she understood the mind of a tabloid hack to begin with, she would start to worry about herself.

  The man in the photograph was sitting in a chair, with duct tape wrapped around his chest. There was also duct tape around his forearms and wrists, securing him to the arms of the chair. The man had his eyes tightly closed, as if he might be anticipating a blow, or as if he were wishing very hard for something.

  Jessica blew up the picture to twice its size.

  And saw that the man didn’t have his eyes closed at all.

  “Oh, Christ,” she said.

  “What?” Byrne asked.

  Jessica turned the monitor to face him.

  The man in the chair was Simon Edward Close, star reporter for Philadelphia’s leading shock tabloid, The Report. Someone had taped him to a dining room chair and sewn both of his eyes shut.

  WHEN BYRNE AND JESSICA APPROACHED the apartment on City Line, there was already a pair of homicide detectives on the scene. Bobby Lauria and Ted Campos.

  When they entered the apartment, Simon Close was in precisely the same position he was in the photograph.

  Bobby Lauria briefed Byrne and Jessica on what they knew.

  “Who found him?” Byrne asked.

  Lauria looked through his notes. “Friend of his. A guy named Chase. They were supposed to meet for breakfast at a Denny’s on City Line. The victim didn’t show. Chase called twice, then stopped over to see if something was wrong. Door was open, he called nine-one-one.”

  “Did you check the phone records from the pay phone at Denny’s?”

  “Didn’t need to,” Lauria said. “Both calls were on the vic’s answering machine. The caller ID matched the phone at Denny’s. He’s legit.”

  “This is the POS you had the problem with last year, right?” Campos asked.

  Byrne knew why he was asking, just like he knew what was coming. “Yeah.”

  The digital camera that took the picture was still on the tripod in front of Close. A CSU officer was dusting the camera and the tripod
.

  “Check this out,” Campos said. He knelt next to the coffee table and, with his gloved hand, maneuvered the mouse attached to Close’s laptop. He opened the iPhoto program. There were sixteen photographs, each of them titled, successively, KEVINBYRNE1.JPG, KEVINBYRNE2.JPG, and so forth. Except none of the photographs were comprehensible. It seemed as if each one had been run through a paint program and had been defaced with a drawing tool. A drawing tool colored red.

  Both Campos and Lauria looked at Byrne. “Gotta ask, Kevin,” Campos said.

  “I know,” Byrne said. They wanted his whereabouts for the past twenty-four. Neither of them suspected him of a thing, but they had to get it out of the way. Byrne, of course, knew the drill. “I’ll lay it out in a statement back at the house.”

  “No problem,” Lauria said.

  “Got a cause yet?” Byrne asked, happy to change the subject.

  Campos stood up, walked behind the victim. There was a small hole at the base of Simon Close’s neck. It was probably caused by a drill bit.

  As the CSU officers did their thing, it was clear that whoever had sewn Close’s eyes shut—and there was little doubt as to who that was—had not gone for quality of workmanship. The thick black thread alternated from piercing the soft skin of the eyelid to an inch or so down the cheek. Thin rivulets of blood had trickled down the face, giving him a Christ-like visage.

  Both skin and flesh were pulled tight, in an upward direction, dragging up the soft tissue around Close’s mouth, exposing his incisors.

  Close’s upper lip was pulled up, but his teeth were together. From a few feet away, Byrne noticed that there was something black and shiny just behind the man’s front teeth.

  Byrne took out a pencil, gestured to Campos.

  “Help yourself,” Campos said.

  Byrne took the pencil and gently leveraged Simon Close’s teeth slightly apart. For a moment, his mouth appeared empty, as if what Byrne thought he saw was a reflection in the man’s bubbled saliva.

  Then a solitary item fell out, rolling down Close’s chest, over his lap, and onto the floor.